Beckys Book Reviews: Favorites of 2008 (middle grade & YA Fiction)
Discover Becky's top middle grade and YA fiction picks of 2008! Explore her favorite book reviews and recommendations for young readers and teens.
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Shooting the Moon
by Frances O'Roark Dowell
When her brother is sent to fight in Vietnam, twelve-year-old Jamie begins to reconsider the army world that she has grown up in.
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The Dead and the Gone
by Susan Beth Pfeffer
After a meteor hits the moon and sets off a series of horrific climate changes, seventeen-year-old Alex Morales must take care of his sisters alone …
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The Adoration of Jenna Fox
by Mary E. Pearson
In the not-too-distant future, when biotechnological advances have made synthetic bodies and brains possible but illegal, a seventeen-year-old girl, recovering from a serious accident and …
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Girl, Hero
by Carrie Jones
Dangerous men swirl around Lily's needy mother and traumatized older sister, and Lily wishes for someone to stand up and take charge, someone strong just …
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The Underneath
by Kathi Appelt
An old hound that has been chained up at his hateful owner's run-down shack, and two kittens born underneath the house, endure separation, danger, and …
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Sweethearts
by Sara Zarr
After losing her soul mate, Cameron, when they were nine, Jennifer, now seventeen, transformed herself from the unpopular fat girl into the beautiful and popular …
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Perfect You
by Elizabeth Scott
Kate Brown's life has gone downhill fast. Her father has quit his job to sell vitamins at the mall, and Kate is forced to work …
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Primavera
by Mary Jane Beaufrand
Growing up in Renaissance Italy, Flora sees her family's fortunes ebb, but encounters with the artist Botticelli and the guidance of her nurse teach her …
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Greetings from Nowhere
by Barbara O'Connor
In North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains, a troubled boy and his mother, a happy family seeking adventure, a man and his lonely daughter, and the …
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Good Enough
by Paula Yoo
Paula Yoo scores big in her hilarious debut novel about an overachiever who longs to fit in and strives to stand out. The pressure is …
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The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine
by April Lurie
Fifteen-year-old Dylan's friend Angie is making a film about him while he is busy trying to keep his older brother from getting caught with drugs, …
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Climbing the Stairs
by Padma Venkatraman
In India, in 1941, when her father becomes brain-damaged in a non-violent protest march, fifteen-year-old Vidya and her family are forced to move in with …
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A la Carte
by Tanita S. Davis
Lainey, a high school senior and aspiring celebrity chef, is forced to question her priorities after her best friend (and secret crush) runs away from …
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Artichoke's Heart
by Suzanne Supplee
While working in her mother's beauty shop where all the best town's gossip flies free, Rosemary Goode becomes determined to lose the weight that seems …
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No Cream Puffs
by Karen Day
In 1980, when twelve-year-old Madison, who loves to play baseball, decides to play in her town's baseball league, she never envisions the uproar it causes …
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Living Dead Girl
by Elizabeth Scott
Once upon a time, I was a little girl who disappeared. Once upon a time, my name was not Alice. Once upon a time, I …
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Found
by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Thirteen-year-old Jonah has always known that he was adopted, and he's never thought it was any big deal. Then he and a new friend, Chip, …
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Zombie Blondes
by Brian James
From the moment Hannah Sanders arrived in town, she felt there was something wrong. A lot of houses were for sale, and the town seemed …
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Something Wicked
by Alan Gratz
In a contemporary story based on Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, Horatio Wilkes seeks to solve the murder of Duncan MacKae at the Scottish Highland Games in …
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The Ghost's Child
by Sonya Hartnett
When a mysterious child appears in her living room one day, the elderly Maddy tells him the story of her love for the wild and …